Do you ever wish your children were more motivated in school, sports or playing an instrument? Many parents try hard to motivate their kids by giving rewards to encourage certain behavior or threatening punishments. Rewards and punishments involve external motivation which children often rebel against leaving parents feeling frustrated.

Understanding Internal Motivation

Ideas about motivation are changing as new research teases out some of the key elements. According to Daniel Pink’s latest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, trying to motivate children using external rewards and punishment is a mistake. The secret for motivating children to high performance lies in allowing their own internal drives direct their behavior.

Pink describes three elements of true motivation:

Autonomy – the need to direct our own lives

Mastery – the desire to make progress in one’s work

Purpose – the ability to positively impact ourselves and our world

For example, if you want your child to practice the piano more, try allowing her to choose when to practice, what music to focus on and where to perform that will bring delight to someone else.

Trying to Control Too Much

When we try to motivate our children, it sometimes backfires as they dig in their heels and refuse to buckle under the pressure. By attempting to exert control over our children’s behavior, we are reducing their autonomy – one of the key elements of internal motivation.

One mom was describing her frustration in getting her daughter to practice the piano. No matter how hard she tried her daughter sat on the piano bench refusing to put her fingers on the keys. This is a typical control battle and one that mom is likely to lose since her daughter ultimately controls what she does with her fingers!

How do we know when we’ve stepped over the line and are trying to control too much of our children’s behavior? Luckily children are pretty good at letting us know when we’ve stepped over that line. If you hear your child saying any of the following, you’re probably over the line:

“You’re not the boss of me!”

“I’m not going to do that!”

“You can’t make me.”

“Why do you always get to choose?”

At this point it is wise to take a step back and look at what we are trying to accomplish and consider other approaches.

Motivating to Perfection

Psychologist Robert W. Hill of Appalachian State University found that when people are trying hard because of their own desire for excellence, this effort can lead to greater satisfaction and mental health. However, if the pressure to perform is coming from others, it’s likely to lead to dissatisfaction and reduced well-being.

In the article “The Two Faces of Perfection”, Hill is quoted as saying

“Kids need to get the message, ‘You need to have high standards, but you don’t need to be perfect.’ If you have unreachable goals and you’re constantly dissatisfied with yourself, you can be miserable. Unequivocally, you don’t want a parent who is constantly criticizing, so the child develops a self-scrutiny that always finds fault with their own performance.”

While we all want our children to try hard and make good choices, in order to accomplish this we need to allow them to practice making those choices. Some of the choices they make will not be so good and that will give them an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

By giving our children the chance to develop their self-motivation, we encourage them to grow and find their own internal strengths.

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Kathy Slattengren

Kathy Slattengren, M. Ed., has helped thousands of parents from across the United States to Australia through her online classes, presentations, coaching and books. Parents excitedly report their success in replacing yelling and threatening with calm, confident responses. When your children’s behavior is really pushing your buttons, discover ways to set effective limits, invite cooperation and have a lot more fun together!